Finally! We are back in the desert after a four day drive with a UHaul truck and everything that could fit inside the beast -- which in our case meant books, art, and dishes. I was more than a little amazed at how much stuff we winnowed out after thirty years and two children. All of our stuff managed to fit in a 17 foot truck.
We managed to find the one day it wasn't going to snow across the Midwest and made our way a day before the storms started up again. I can't begin to tell you how wonderful, how warm, how utterly enchanting it is to be back in the desert. Two months of hunched shoulders, cold feet, paint fumes, sleepless nights, giving way to huge blue skies and the loveliness of the desert in spring.
As I now have my scanner and all the archived photos, I am happy to send along this picture of one of my grandfather's, Pierre Ménager, sculptures of a Mescalero Apache Devil dancer (done in 1959). The piece wasn't finished -- it would be painted-- but I am still searching for the photo** of the completed work. I hope this year to finally get up to Santa Fe and see if I can find any of these beauties still around.
**Found It! Here's a photo of three dancers -- including the one above, beautifully painted. It's a shame I don't have one in color!
